Reel 1

259 manuscript items. No calendar available.

(relating his father's plan to assist Ellen Fitzsimmons in attaining a position at the University of South Carolina and stating that his father had found the library "to be a very good Library indeed--of course it is not up to date.--on the same plan as the Astor. The difficulty in the way of doing any thing for it, is that they have only $400. a year," and outlining his father's suggested plan for employing Ellen Fitzsimmons).

(collecting documents for the New York Public Library and commenting on the war as "a two penny business thus far. We ought not to have seized private property that was not contraband of war--and by doing so we have put ourselves on a low plane").

(reporting on his salmon fishing trip to Canada and remarking re the war--"I hope Spain will give up soon for the dragging out of this unequal contest is simply useless and only causes misery to innocent people").

relating that his father dreaded a visit to Andrew Carnegie at his castle in Scotland--"where the walls are plastered with No smoking allowed on the premises', and a kilted bag-piper solemnly skirls them in to dinner every night").

(discussing family finances, his father to receive honorary degree at Yale, and remarking--"N.Y. will be a pig-style if Tammany wins in November").

(backing Biggs for head of the Health Department--"But I was discouraged when I read in the paper this morning that one of Platt's professional Republican Heelers was after the job," Seth Low looking for higher things and will do anything for T.C.P.," and Billings, Sr. interested in one of Carnegie's "large schemes").

Billings family tree; pictures of family homes, members of the John Shaw Billings (1838-1913) family; Army Medical Library and Museum, Washington; Johns Hopkins Hospital staff; offices of John Sedgwick Billings (1869-1928); family tombstones in Arlington National Cemetery.

Career data on John Sedgwick Billings (1869-1928): autobiographical sketch of his training at University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins; experience as Chief of Bureau of Communicable Diseases, New York City, and Major in Medical Corps, World War I.

Photograph album, including pictures of the Billings family, Irene Castles, Marilyn Miller, General Meade's staff in 1864, offices of John Sedgwick Billings, home at Douglas Manor, Long Island.